General Ledger Data Analytics

General Ledger Data Analytics

KPMG’s General Ledger Investigator (GL Investigator) allows businesses to gain quantitative insights and visibility over the data captured within the business sub-system and general ledger (GL).

1000
Barry Sullivan

Partner, Tax Technology & Innovation

KPMG Australia

Email
Mountaineer at sunrise sunset

How is DA disrupting the general ledger tax review process?

Traditionally many organisations devote valuable resources to manually checking transactional data that forms the basis of their tax compliance work papers. Tax personnel use varying methods to perform such reviews. Typically this line item analysis involves the use of heavily customised and complex excel documents, random sampling, and applying high materiality thresholds. Given the volume of work required to prepare and validate tax returns, the ability to review and gain comfort over the veracity and integrity of the underlying transactional data is often limited by time and resource capacity constraints.

Key questions to ask about transactional data reviews:

  • How long does the tax function spend manually reviewing general ledger and sub-systems to ensure correct tax postings?
  • When did I last have the ability to interrogate large volumes of transactional data with customised and business specific tax testing?
  • Have tax deductible expenses been booked to non-deductible accounts?

What insights can GL Investigator provide?

  • Review tax sensitised accounts: Analyse expenditure previously treated as non-deductible. Identify any expenses which can be claimed for tax purposes.
  • Oversight over the entire general ledger transactions: Data driven testing over the entire population of data now replaces complex excel, random sampling and materiality limits to identify incorrect tax classifications.
  • Oversight of business behaviours: Uncover operational control weaknesses which may be more prevalent in certain business units or with certain projects and transactions that give rise to more errors.
  • Governance: Test controls in place for tax coding and posting and demonstrate good governance in line with the ATO’s expectations.

KPMG Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we operate, live and gather as employees, and recognise their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

©2024 KPMG, an Australian partnership and a member firm of the KPMG global organisation of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International Limited, a private English company limited by guarantee. All rights reserved. The KPMG name and logo are trademarks used under license by the independent member firms of the KPMG global organisation.

Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.


For more detail about the structure of the KPMG global organisation please visit https://kpmg.com/governance.

Connect with us

Save, Curate and Share

Save what resonates, curate a library of information, and share content with your network of contacts.